Joel Sked
There was a certain predictability about it. James Forrest raced away from Tam Scoobie, one-v-one with Alan Mannus, he sped past Mannus leaving him helpless and then . . . well you didn’t even need to watch what happened next. You knew. You. Just. Knew. Derek Rae gets more animated than usual, echoing Chris Kamara with a shout of UNBELIEVABLE, while Gary McCallister lets out a surprising and exasperated groan.
The hordes of Celtic fans behind the goal were already celebrating. Hands were in the air, embraces with friends, family and strangers were just beginning. Those were premature (story of my life ay-oh!). Hands in the air quickly dropped to hands on head. Celebratory hugs turned into awkward cuddles.
Having latched onto Scobbie’s mis-cued backpass, Forrest’s first touch was exquisite to let him hare away. He effortlessly went around Mannus, the goalkeeper knowing he could not touch him, and just when it seemed he was going to put Celtic ahead, the ball bobbled on St Johnstone’s excuse for a pitch and he skewed horribly yet predictably wide.
Shaughan McGuigan
There were a menagerie of highlights amongst the SPFL play-offs this weekend, so much so that it’s a tricky business to extricate just one. From Garry Wood’s outrageous clinching goal for Montrose against Brora Rangers to Stenhousemuir shaking off the dismal tenure of Scott Booth, to sneak past Gus McPherson’s overachieving Queens Park side to remain in League One.
However, unquestionably the stand-out play-off fixture, was Alloa’s unlikely come-from-behind triumph over Forfar in the second leg of the Battle-of-the-Athletics.
Michael Chopra grabbed the opener in his last match before heading back to India, while Darryl Meggatt grabbed the winner in his last outing for The Wasps, before heading for the rather less exotic destination of Dundee.
The goal that was jammed in-between was almost worthy of a highlight-of-the-weekend spot, when goalkeeper, Robert Douglas and centre-half, Darren Dods indulged in some Chuckle Brother-esque defending, with their to-me-to-you routine allowing Liam Buchanan to get Alloa back on level terms.
Ultimately though, the stand-out moment should be reserved for Danny Lennon’s simultaneous achievements, of not only vindicating his appointment as Alloa boss by rallying them in the last few weeks, but also making the St. Mirren board look slightly foolish, as they slipped down a division under the tutelage of Lennon’s less-than-adequate replacements.
Lennon may or may not be revelling in the schadenfreude of that fact, but he’ll presumably be looking forward to the opportunity of besting his former employers when Alloa take on St. Mirren in the Championship next season.
Craig Cairns
This season has been one of the most difficult in my life. Regular visits to the hospital, family bereavements, losing a friend, getting divorced, being deported and work-related stress have all added to the the realisation that we’ll be under Tory rule for another five years. Horrendous as these events have been, things could have been so much worse for me. I could be a season ticket holder at St Mirren.
Stephen Mallan’s strike on Saturday gave St Mirren just their third home league victory – and just their 14th home league goal – of the season and condemned Motherwell to the play-off final in the process. It was a rare glimpse of the potential within the St Mirren squad had their managerial appointments and recruitment policy been more productive over the last two transfer windows. Relegation rivals Ross County and Motherwell may have botched their transfer dealing last summer, but both added well in January and successfully steered themselves clear of the automatic relegation spot.
St Mirren, on the other hand, signed striker Yoann Arquin – who had been released for being garbage at Ross County – to rectify their impotent attack. Why they did so, I’m still unsure. Arquin managed more red cards than goals in his spell with St Mirren, and he only received one red card.
‘Malladona’, as Mallan is now affectionately known, had already picked up the award for goal of the season before Saturday’s superb strike and has been one of the few positives in a dreadful campaign for the Paisley side. As well as scoring wonder-strikes, Mallan has, on the few occasions his side have dominated, dictated the midfield area with a wide range of passing and bags of brawn. Despite his younger years, he is not afraid to go toe-to-toe with some of the more aggressive central midfielders in the division and compliments this well with technical ability and game intelligence.
It’s just a shame that, to add to my woes (and to make this about me), we are losing him from next season’s top-flight.
Gary Cocker
This week’s call-up for Scott Bain has been great news for Dundee fans, but it also shows how Kyle Letheren is largely blameless for his drop to the bench this season.
Bain has been in scintillating form, but the Welsh wizard warmed the cockles of my heart by rolling back the months with a sensational double save from Cammy Smith in our 1-1 draw with Aberdeen.
Although not half as important as his frantic stretch Armstrong-esque claw away of Bryan Prunty’s header in the very same set of goals last season to secure the Championship, it was as impressive and will surely have alerted some teams to his availability this summer.
We’ve been fortunate to have two top goalies this season to paper over our defensive cracks, and our loss will undoubtedly be somebody else’s gain as Kyle’s hunt for first team football runs its course. As long as it’s not United….
Tony Anderson
Pretending last night didn’t happen I’m going to go back to a happier time when I really fancied Hibs’ chances of dumping Rangers out of the play-offs and getting back to the top flight at the first time of asking. This mood was enhanced by the sight of Bilel Mohsni in the Rangers team during the Queen of the South match and the utter retardation of his decision making process. What kind of centre half, in the final minutes of a game, striding across the halfway line with no teammate in sight, doesn’t head immediately for the nearest corner flag and set up camp? Shooting from that distance, and if you watched the game you know exactly what I’m talking about, completely defied belief.
You can also throw in the fact he took ages getting ready when he was a substitute. That’s equally infuriating. He’s a substitute. The one job he has while on the bench is to be ready to play. Not **** around and have to be told off by his manager like he’s a school kid mucking about at PE.
I cannot fathom what Freiburg could possibly see in him. I just have to assume this is bollocks. That it’s one of what will be many unsubstantiated rumours over the coming months. Because if it isn’t then I don’t understand football any more. How could someone go from being a mediocre Championship player to featuring in the Bundesliga? No. It’s not possible.
Craig Fowler
So, what, nobody is going to mention Josh Magennis ‘headbutting’ Jamie Hamiil? Ok, I will admit it was a bit of an anti-climax having heard that he headbutted him, and then watched the Northern Irishman drag his crown across Hamill’s puss. It wasn’t exactly Duncan Ferguson on the McStay brother, was it?
However, it’s still my favourite moment because it reaffirmed my prior belief that Jamie Hamill is a complete weapon and even someone who comes across as well as Magennis would lose the rag with him. I also appreciated how the saga was dragged out with the media predicting Magennis would be in trouble, a piece of foreshadowing that was confirmed when the compliance officer slapped him with a two-game ban.
Now, for those of you don’t know, if Magennis scores twice in the final game of the season, that will take him into double figures for the campaign and will mean Joel has to eat Tony’s pubes as part of an ill-advised early season bet. I find the prospect of such a scenario coming to reality disgusting and hilarious in equal measure.
It seemed my hopes had been dashed until the appeal verdict came back: Magennis was off the hook. Now it’s got this whole Hollywood ‘triumph over adversity’ narrative and I’m growing increasingly certain Joel is going to have Tony’s wires scraping around his gums soon enough.
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